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Written by Finn Ruijter, 24 June 2022

Are you missing data? Server side tracking is the solution [+ Results]

As a company, have you been looking for a service that will make a difference for years? A service you simply cannot ignore for your website or app? Server Side Tracking – better known as

Server Side Tagging

– may well be that golden find.

In this day and age, using Server Side Tracking is indispensable for better results and complete data. Yet entrepreneurs still too often neglect these necessary but unknown and new opportunities. Does it lack the knowledge or fail to recognize the seriousness of missing data? This blog explains the absolute added value of Server Side Tracking through numbers.

What is Server Side Tracking?

You may well not know what Server Side Tracking can do for you. But chances are you do face the problem that Server Side Tracking solves.

Website visitors are worth gold to businesses, but due to the new AVG legislation, these visitors are not always properly measured. The cause of this? Browsers such as Safari, Firefox and, in 2023, Chrome will block third-party cookies from external sources. The consequence of this blockade is the loss of a lot of data, which is unfavorable for your campaigns. Google’s Server Side Tracking converts third-party cookies into first-party cookies preventing data loss. All collected data is then transmitted on a remote server via API connections.

Why Server Side Tracking?

Before we come up with impressive numbers to prove the effectiveness of Server Side Tracking, we’d like to explain the tool using an example.

Data blocking prevents a website visitor from being tracked in his or her purchasing behavior. So it just might be that a website visitor will proceed to purchase in part because of your campaign. Mission accomplished. The campaign costs paid for themselves through website visitor acquisition. However, the data does not reflect that the website visitor made a purchase. So the campaign will start running again for this visitor, while there is zero chance of a new purchase on the same day. As a result, you are therefore incurring unnecessary campaign costs that you could have used to convince another website visitor to buy. Server side tag management ensures that all this data can be accessed though.

The benefits

Now that you understand the functionality and what difference it can make for your clients, let’s take a closer look at the benefits.

Save ad spend costs

As mentioned above, unnecessary campaign costs are a thing of the past thanks to Server Side Tracking. Every euro you put into a campaign will be put to good use from now on.

Avoid ad blockers

Server Side Tracking is elusive to ad blockers. As a result, no data remains up in the air and you can finally trust your website statistics.

More performance

With server side tag management, you maintain an overview. You are still only working with one subdomain and that has a positive impact on your speed.

Control over your data

You are in control. Browsers no longer determine what data are and are not displayed. You control what data goes through your website to external parties such as Facebook and Google.

Security easier to manage

Another added benefit of working with a single subdomain is managing a Content Security Policy (CSP). With several domains, this is quite a task, while of course the security of your data is the highest priority.

How exactly does it work?

The implementation is complex, but we try to explain it as best we can. In the current setup, external domains such as facebook.com measure visitors through a script. More and more browsers are automatically blocking these well-known domains to make Web sites as privacy-friendly as possible. This also happens when visitors accept your cookie banner. The diagram below shows how this is done.

Client-side tracking

Server Side Tracking flies it differently. By means of a server on your domain (measurement.2manydots.co.uk) you collect all the necessary data. Consider events (clicks), browser types, IP addresses, etc. You’re not going to pass everything, of course, but you have all these variables available.

Platforms such as Facebook and Snapchat have provided “API endpoints” that allow you to send this data to them. Because you are sending this from your environment (measurement.2manydots.co.uk), it cannot be blocked. We call this first-party data. You control how and what data goes their way. They can process this to make your campaigns perform better.

Server-side tracking

The numbers

We can write it all down so nicely, but it’s the numbers that speak volumes. We have already implemented Server Side Tracking for several clients and the resulting results have been nothing short of amazing.

The graph above shows a blue line (without Server Side Tracking) and a red line (with Server Side Tracking). It can be seen that the number of events through Facebook is 35% higher than the data without Server Side Tracking suggested. At this webshop, ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) increased by over 200%. The two graphs below also clearly chart the difference. Your clients should see this too, right?

Results-google-analytics-corporate
Ga4-ecommerce website

AVG-Proof

If you have heard of Server Side Tracking before combined with the results, you may suspect that various rules are being circumvented. The opposite is true. You remain in control of all data sent to other platforms. Server Side Tracking as a whole is subject to the General Data Protection Regulation (AVG Act).

2manydots helps you get the right data

The days of free data are over. But data is too valuable not to invest in. Of course, when you make that investment, you want the data you obtain to be the right data. Engage 2manydots and we’ll make sure you don’t incur unnecessary campaign costs.